In 1930 he lived with his mother, maternal grandparents, and older brother and sister in a house at 4632 South 28th West Avenue in Tulsa, OK. His grandfather owned their home, which was valued at $3000. His brother and sister had been born in the hospital in Bellevue, PA, but his birth certificate seems to indicate that he was born at home at 117 Vancouver Avenue in Tulsa. His father was living in Ross Township, Allegheny County, PA in 1930, with his (Harold's) parents while they figured out who was going to live where. They decided to build a new house for his (Bob's) grandparents, and to sell the house at 316 McKinley Ave. to Harold and Ethel, so they could raise their children there.

In Second Grade, on December 11, 1936, he was sitting on the window sill in his classroom when he was suddenly struck with a terrible pain in his head and started screaming in agony. Nothing any teachers or the principal did could calm him down. The policeman at the school crossing was called in, and he eventually took Bob home. The pain lasted all night, so he was taken to the Bellevue Hospital the next day. He was in the hospital for 7-10 days, and it was determined that he must have had a cerebral hemorrhage. He was cross-eyed and pigeon-toed and dragged one of his legs while in the hospital and for some time after getting back home, but those symptoms disappeared pretty quickly.

Several doctors came to the house to keep up with his case--and to get spinal fluid for tests. He had to be held down over a cedar chest, which he naturally hated the sight of for many years afterwards. Some of the doctors' names were Agnew, Witherspoon, and Stoecklein, and it is thought that one of them wrote a thesis about the case, since it was highly unusual for someone so young to have such a condition. He missed the rest of that school year, but later went to Summer School to catch up, so that he could graduate with his class. For years people could not believe that he was alright--but he was, and seemed to have no recollection of the pain, other than that associated with the cedar chest.

In 1940 he lived with his parents and brother and sister in the house at 316 McKinley Avenue in Avalon, PA. His father owned their home, which was valued at $4500. Harold worked as a real estate salesman.

In 1950 the five of them lived in the same house. Harold worked as a real estate salesman for a real estate company, Betty as a medical secretary for a steel compaany, and Robert as a tire salesman for a wholesale tire company.

He graduated from Avalon High School in June 1947 and went to work for Massey Buick in Dormont. In 1948 he didn't get the raise he wanted so started his own Tire Business--see photo of his business van at left by clicking on "See 17 more"--and ran it for a couple years. He joined the Air Force Reserves in late 1948 but wasn't called for active duty until August 1950. His period of active duty was from October 15, 1950 to July 18, 1952. Those were undoubtedly the best two years of his life.

His job was Senior Radiology Specialist and he was assigned to what was then known as Greenville Air Force Base, south of Greenville, SC. He left a young lady behind who he must have missed terribly, because he went out and bought a ring and on one of his leaves back home he asked her to marry him. But there was already too much "water under the bridge"--for both of them, no doubt--and she said no. He kept the ring, though, and would recycle it a couple years later when he met someone who looked a lot like her.

By the Spring of 1951 he had already joined the organization that would remain a big part of his life for the rest of his years: the S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A. After singing in several different quartets, by the Fall of 1951 The Air Fours had solidified, and would remain together until their tours of duty were done--and then reunite several times afterwards. They were able to travel all over the eastern U.S. to perform at many different venues, and within Barbershop Quartet circles attained a bit of regional fame. By 1952 the base had been renamed Donaldson Air Force Base.

Either through contacts made at different shows or from watching TV or reading newspapers or magazines, Bob became aware of Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts Program, and wrote to them for information about auditions. He found out, though, that they only made definite audition appointments for residents of New York City and its immediate vicinity. Then on February 20 and 21, 1953, the Air Fours reunited in Charlotte and shared the bill with one of Arthur Godfrey's biggest success stories, The Chordettes.

But by then Bob's life had been irrevocably changed. His commanding officer, Lt Colonel Robert A Brown, had recommended that he apply to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and had written a glowing letter of recommendation for him in June 1952. Bob was accepted and began classes in the Fall. He joined the Men's Glee Club and tried to organize a Barbershop Quartet chapter in Chapel Hill. The Men's Glee Club and the Women's Glee Club sang together that Fall, and it must have been there that he noticed the young woman who must have reminded him of the young woman back in Pittsburgh who he had been thinking of for years and who had rejected his marriage proposal.

It turned out that she was on the lookout for a blue-eyed man from Pennsylvania to marry, because her mother had met such a man when she was in college in Missoula, Montana. However, whereas her mother was seven months older than her father, for some reason she had decided that her husband would have to be eight years older than she was. Bob, for his part, for some reason felt the need to impress her, so at first claimed to be an Air Force pilot. As for the age, he had apparently been in the habit off and on of using his brother's age--and sometimes his name and occupation, too--in the past, so it was easy to start using it again then. And the truth didn't come out for many years.

Bob must have thought that he knew something about living in The South after spending nearly two years based in Greenville. What he failed to realize--and this is something that holds true to this day, although to a lesser extent--was that, although conservative in many ways, the military was nevertheless light years ahead of The South in its dedication to equal rights and fairness and doing away with bigotry and discrimination. The old Southern ideas of chivalry, which were really a disguise for racism and misogyny, had begun to be rooted out of the military after WWII.

So what a shock it must have been to get to the UNC at Chapel Hill and find that they still had an Honor Code in place, and that all entering students had to sign a pledge to abide by it. (UNC was still in legal trouble into the 21st Century because of some of its policies which used the Honor Code as justification.) Bob was suspended indefinitely on January 6, 1953 by the Men's Council for a violation of the Honor Code. He was reinstated March 3, 1953--suspiciously close to the time that he wrote to his girlfriend's parents asking permission to marry their daughter. Over sixty years later his widow claimed that she never knew he had even been suspended, much less what for.

They married on June 6, 1953. Perhaps she had claimed to be pregnant--who knows?--but in retrospect there just seems to have been no good reason for them to have married at that time. Bob's sister Betty and her friend "Micky" McMahon ran into them in Myrtle Beach when they were on their honeymoon, and Betty told the story years later of Bob being very upset and even breaking down in tears once--but he never did explain why.

But married they were, and they bought a little house at 114 Mason Farm Road in Chapel Hill. As with so many other aspects of their ten years together, nobody but the two of them can ever know why they did what they did. That, of course, is true of most marriages--that nobody on the outside looking in can ever know what really goes on. Of course, the end results, including how any children turn out--can give some big clues as to what must have gone on. Obviously the fact that both of them grew up in the depression must have been very formative experiences. But Bob grew up in a close, fun-loving family, lived in the same house for over twenty years, and had lots of school friends. She, on the other hand, had never gone to the same school for more than one year until her Junior and Senior years in High School.

On April 1, 1954 Bob requested a 45-day tour of active duty for the period June 1 through July 15. He was only called up for 15 days starting July 25, to Fort Benning, GA. When this was objected to by his wife, he told her it had been a mistake, which was something she continued to believe and claim over 55 years later. By then she really was pregnant, which must have been exciting for both of them. But that didn't turn out well--see son Michael Robert's page for some details.

Obviously the death of a baby had to have been very hard on them. Bob had always been what is charitably termed an "indifferent student". Certainly he could have done better if he had put his mind to it. But he didn't, and so became scholastically ineligible--a nice way of saying he flunked out. He worked in construction a little that spring and/or summer, apparently, then by Fall had been hired by the Chapel Hill News Leader as Circulation Manager. He also had business cards showing him as an agent for the Greensboro Daily News. Apparently both were fancy titles for Delivery Man.

There was an article in the News Leader announcing Bob's hiring, as well as the hiring of Mrs. Nancy Winborne as Women's Editor. What happened over the next three months was quite bizarre. From October through December somebody took checks written by various businesses to pay for advertising in the paper and deposited them in a personal account: embezzlement, which is in the vast majority of cases a crime committed by women. Bob spent the night of December 19 in jail. According to newspaper accounts he had "readily admitted" to the crime. But of course in hindsight several questions come to mind, namely how could he have gotten hold of the checks in the first place, how could he keep covering up the failure to deposit checks in their usual places, and, most importantly of all: WHERE DID THE MONEY GO? Also, the case got "nol prossed", which meant no admission of guilt, and that the prosecution didn't think it would be able to prove the case. Of course, that may have been a bargain struck by his father after making restitution, so that Bob would not have a criminal record following him around. First offender and all that. Who knows?

In recounting the story to her oldest son nearly twenty years later, his widow claimed that his father had asked her if he was worth it. After many more years of observing her interactions with others, and after gathering much more information from dozens of people about Bob, it seems more likely that the truth of the matter was that his father asked Bob if she was worth it--whichever she it may have been. His widow has also claimed that when the police came to tell her that Bob was in jail on a charge of embezzlement that she had no idea what the word meant. Possibly that was true--but if so, what an indictment of the North Carolina education system--but it has been a recurring pattern with her, the claiming of ignorance with regard to so many things that are just common knowledge among most people in the U.S.

At any rate, no matter what the true details were for his three and a half years spent in The South as a civilian, those years were now over, and he would spend the rest of his life back home in his old stomping ground--Avalon, PA and vicinity. Actually Pittsburgh, PA and vicinity would be more like it, because having worked in Dormont and delivered tires all over the area, he probably knew at least the west side of the Pittsburgh Metro Area (although nobody called it that yet) quite well.

In the Spring of 1956 he worked off his debt to his father by remodeling the kitchen in his parents' house at 316 McKinley Avenue. His marriage was in limbo, it seems--but divorce was a dirty word in that time and place, although it did occasionally happen. His wife came for a visit before her summer session at UNC and got pregnant. And so in the Fall she moved to the Pittsburgh Metro Area (again, it was not called that at the time), where she had traveled many times in her youth to visit her paternal grandparents in New Kensington.

His father knew someone who got him a job at American Bridge in Ambridge, PA. Yes, the town was named after the company. Bob worked there the rest of his life--not a glamorous job, and nothing he would ever get rich at, but steady, honest work, with income enough to support a family. As mentioned, Bob had worked off his debt to his father--skilled carpenters made good money then, as they always have. But then Bob got the idea of claiming that he still owed his father money, which he had to repay at the rate of five dollars a week for many, many years. Or possibly he did still owe his father a little money after the kitchen remodel was deducted from what he owed, but that would have been paid off after just another year or two. But he continued to tell his wife for many years that he had to keep paying his father. In reality it gave him a little bit of money to be able to relax and unwind at the end of each work week. Yet many years later she told her oldest son that it was the pressure of being asked by his father to repay some other debt--but much smaller and, as it turned out, also non-existent--that caused him to get depressed and suicidal.

Such a wide variety of reasons for his sudden and unusual death--which should have automatically triggered an autopsy, which was, however, not done--have been given through the years by his widow, so many differing stories about what all occurred during the last few hours of his life, and so much important information withheld from his children (particularly their oldest surviving child) which could have put them in touch with many of the people involved while they were still alive, that it will always remain impossible to determine what really happened on the last day of his life. Suffice it to say that the official coroner's report contains many statements which are physically impossible to have occurred, and which have been contradicted in many ways by some of the people involved. That report was also misplaced for many years, and at least one page removed from it. Records are kept of who inquired about and viewed those files through the years, but despite the extreme importance of such information, it was not provided to Bob's oldest son when requested.

As for what is definitely known, he and his growing family lived in three different apartments in Sewickley and a house in Moon Township over the last six years of his life. First was a second-floor apartment at 340 Henry Avenue, where they lived when their next child, a son, was born in February 1957. By that summer they had moved to the third-floor apartment at 327 Thorn Street. They lived there when their next child, also a son, was born in May 1958. Sometime in early 1960 they moved to the first-floor apartment at 258 Grant Street. While living there their last two children--also sons--were born, in July 1960 and November 1961. Then in the summer of 1962 they moved to 243 Larue Drive in Moon Township (now just known as Moon), where he lived for the rest of his much-too-short life.